Mushrooms and polyps

[TLT]

What are the requirements as far as lighting (placement) and current for these types of corals. I have a 125 reef with good water quality, 4 96 watt pc's. And yet I cannot seem to get these to flourish. Any special additives?

 

[pitlife79]

What's up TLT. For mushrooms and Polyps (I'm going to assume Zoanthid polyps here) your lighting is probably sufficient. I would try using calcium, iodine and Strontium/molybdenum. They commonly sell these as a standard reef pack and they are typically the most commonly used supplements to support growth.

 

[ronj]

what other corals do you have in your tank??? are they doing ok??? i would look more into flow and lighting before you begin to dose additives..they can really throw your tank out of balance and cause disater...if it is just these corals in your tank, i would stick with water changes to replentish any lost trace elements

 

[twilliard]

I second Rons words, DONT DOSE. Its not hard to keep most mushrooms and polyps. Some are harder than others to keep.
I have had "good" and "bad" waters and they all do well. I would look into flow, lighting, and water qualities as in PH, SG, temp. Those are what I have found that afects my softies the most.

 

[kevinpo]

Hello and welcome to RF TLT.

Your lighting will do very well for these types of corals and many other soft ones as well. They do best in well established tanks (+6 months) with a moderate to high bio-load. The Corallimorpharians (Mushroom Corals) are quite adaptable to a wide variety of lighting, flow, and water conditions. They occur in the wild in very high and low light areas. They prefer low flow and (in the home aquarium) most often reproduce by pedal laceration. They expand more in lower light environments (less than halides) and do not require any extra additives to flourish.

Zoanthids have much the same requirements as the Mushroom Corals. They are better at capturing small bits of food than most Mushrooms. Remember to take care when handling Zoanthids as they can contain a chemical called palytoxin (a powerful neurotoxin) It can enter through cuts or by touching your lips after handling them. It can cause extreme illness and even death.

Regards,
Kevin

 

[fload]

Could you give us some more information? What's your temp? What do you test for? How long has the system been running? What happens to the mushrooms or polyps when they die?

 

[sc18702]

Hello all - need some information based on others experience. Some of my mushrroms which used to spread out to be quite large now look very shrivelled. They don"t actually appear to be dying but have become the size of a dime or smaller when they used to be bigger than a half dollar. Any idea why the change. No real change in my water conditions for the basics that I test.

Also, why don"y all of the polyps open up on a rock. Some are wide open and look very healthy and others continue to remain closed. I have a number of different types but they never seem to all open up.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[kevinpo]

A picture would be very helpful. Did you add a new lighting system or bulbs? Mushroom corals can reduce their size by more than 50% under increased lighting. They are not sick or dying just adjusting to the lighting. If it is an established tank salinity, nitrate, and temperature are the main parameters to watch.

HTH,
Kevin

 

[sc18702]

The tank is only 4 months old and has a coralife lighting system with a total of 193watts (no MH) for a 70g tank (36" wide so a little deeper than than the typical 48" tank). Chems have always been steady with slightly high nitrates but recently lowered the nitrates from 40ppm to around 20ppm. Interesting part is that the long tenacle which I am told is most sensitive to nitrates looks great. Strange part is they looked great before this. Also, around the same time I added something called nitrex to my sump to try and bring down the nitrates. I have since taken it out to see if there was any correlation but no change in the shrooms yet.

One last question, how do shrooms propagate ? Do they curl up and kind of pinch of fa new mushroom ? Thought I noticed this happening on a different species than the one I am concerned about.

 

[kevinpo]

20-40ppm of nitrates for mushroom corals is not excessive. They will do quite well as long as you are not getting too much algae overgrowth. With the depth of the 70 gallon the mushrooms should be expanding nicely under your lighting fixture.

See previous post for care and reproduction.

Regards,
Kevin

 

[sc18702]

Thanks for the input Kevin. There lies the mystery as nothing has changed much but the mushrooms are shrinking. It just shows how sensitive a closed environment can be on living animals.